ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Women's Volleyball earned a decisive three-set win over the visiting Immaculata University Mighty Macs. With Fall Free Days this weekend, the Eagles (11-5) hit .341 and fired 16 aces to finish the match in less than an hour.
Grace Nealy had nine kills and hit .500 for the match.
With
Elle Jiron-Bujanda,
Viviana Fragoso, and
Grace Casagrande as the first three servers, the Eagles raced out to a 19-2 lead. Jiron-Buanda served the first ten points of the match before giving way to Eastern's other two setters. Casagrande had five digs in the opening set before handing the libero role off to
Trinity Gruber for the rest of the evening.
Nealy had four kills in the first set and the Eagles hit .400 as a team.
Jessie Schreiber ended the set with a big kill at 25-6.
The Mighty Macs (2-8) scored the first three points of the second set, and the two teams were tied at 5-5 when
Taylor Stone stepped back to serve. Her aggressive serving put the Eagles up 16-5. She had four aces in the run. The Eagles had seven aces and hit .500 with 13 kills in running out to a 25-8 win in the second. Stone had eight assists and four digs.
Logan Martin and
McKenzie Boyer each had four kills.
Kallie Rogers served the Eagles to a 6-0 lead in the third. While the visitors earned some points on blocks and pulled within five points at 13-8 before Nealy and Boyer combined on a block to earn the sideout and start a run with
Grace Cooper at the service line.
Natalie Saxton hit .300 for the match and fired four aces in the final set.
Logan Martin had a match-high 10 kills. Rogers finished with 12 assists and Stone had 13.
Jailene Lugo and Schreiber each hit for good numbers on the right side. Lugo hit .444 with five kills, and Schreiber hit .364 with six. Gruber finished with six digs.
"We emphasized controlling what happened on our side of the net," Head Coach
Mark Birtwistle said after the match. "I think we did a good job of that even as we moved some people around."
After the break, the Eagles will return to a schedule that features at least one big match a week for the remainder of the year. On Wednesday, they will host MAC Commonwealth foe Stevenson in a rematch of the last three league championships.